Mad Max: Fury RoadI make fun of "orange & teal" as much as the next snob, but in this case, it really worked (some of the reds also popped in spectacular ways). The downside is, color grading, composition, all around cinematography — this is all you'll notice and all to get excited about for the first 30 - 45 minutes. It works rather well (while having the overall look and appeal of a fashion shoot), but gets a bit silly in the sandstorm — the colors just get too ridiculous and retro in that, and you half expect Dorothy to be swept by, mumbling about Kansas.

I'm also pointedly underwhelmed by the music in Fury Road: Much was made of the bard with the flame-thrower guitar, but what he's actually playing is a complete letdown. It's not cool, it's not inspiring, it's a few lame-ass notes. No riffs, no shredding, no solos. And that's just the diegetic sound. I didn't really notice the score, good or bad, until late in the movie, when, during a death scene I believe, it was so ridiculously soppy as to pull me straight out of the narrative. As immersion is rarely more than ankle deep in this movie, I'm not sure how much that really says, though.

It has been suggested that the MRAs hated this movie because there was a competent woman in a key role. But didn't that also apply to Aunty Entity? What is the difference here — that Furiosa wasn't sexualized? That she wasn't an enemy to be overcome, not even a sidekick, but a whole-grain ally? Or is it the realization that the movie didn't actually get good until they met a group of crones — traditionally low visibility characters outside of the three witches and Golden Girls?

Be that as it may, on the upside, who knows, maybe this installment's success means that we'll get a Borderlands movie? :)

All in all, Fury Road's not bad, but not a classic either. But let's not forget that part one was essentially a low production value exploitation movie, and part three had a spectacular looking Tina Turner, but also some major weirdness like the tacked-on post-Thunderdome ending to give but one example. So if Fury Road isn't perfect? That just means it fits right in.﻿

Terminator GenisysNot sure what the bad rap's about. Its fights are short and to the point, the editing avoided that whole "shrapnel of one second close-ups" thing that annoys me so (fog of war, my ass), and the story and jokes are somewhat self-referential, which is fair game this late in the franchise (cf Expendables). They still managed to make the terminator genuinely scary a couple of times, if not throughout the entire movie like they managed to in the first installment. A can-see, not a must-see — but seeing as T2> T1 > SCC > Genisys, that still makes Genisys 3rd best out of 5 films. Hardly horrible.Only complaint: the genre staple The End … or is it?Seriously, I liked this one, but I really don't want another Terminator movie. Enough already. If anything, give the Sarah Connor Chronicles another season — there's still potential there, though it did get a lot more closure than most shows that get cancelled early.

Universal Soldier is kinda horrible. This is universally acknowledged, even by the makers, for which reason the franchise was rebooted. A lot.

The Quadrilogy boxed set ignores Brothers in Arms and Unfinished Business (neither of which use the original cast or crew), but includes the two most recent installments, which were released in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Yes, you read that right. This franchise spans 20 years now.

Universal Soldier: This has a lot more humour than I remembered. Unfortunately, the jokes show their age and don't quite work, so it's a case of, "I like what you're trying to do, but not how you're doing it." The second strike against is that Dolph Lundgren's accent is so thick as to be almost unintelligible, and his "acting" so hammy as to be distracting and offensive (look, I like Dolph, and by the third instalment, he sounds pretty normal, but in the first one, he's just horrible. Deal.). The third strike is that even though it has a few things going for it (some action, attempts at humour, non-horrible story, and a surprisingly charming Jean-Claude van Damme), this is ultimately emotionally shallow and unengaging -- which of course should come as no surprise, as it's a Roland Emmerich movie. The DVD contains a sufficiently different alternate ending.

The Return: JCVD has been un-unisol'd, and functions normally and happily as part of the unisol training program. Unfortunately what ensues is one of those "the computer ate my homework" movies that were churned out by the dozen during that era. I like JCVD, Michael Jai White, and wrestler Goldberg in the extras, but due to the horrible script, I still hated the actual movie. Dolph is not in this part.

Regeneration: Directed by John Hyams due to JCVD liking his MMA documentary, The Smashing Machine. Regeneration consequently has harsh light, a gritty feel, and brutal violence, amounting to quite a change of tone from Universal Soldier's "violence is glamorous and funny" to Regeneration's ugly, short, and stark scenes set in a bleak world. It also seems more modest in its production values as most of the film is spent in an industrial facility posing as the chernobyl power plant, making this closer to JCVD's Cyborg in some ways than it is to the original Universal Soldier. The movie isn't actually horrible, but between the done-to-death gritty shtick, the rather basic set and story, and the change in tone, I didn't enjoy it that much. I should probably be more open to this sort of experimentation, considering the improvement that the Dark Knight presented over Adam West's Batman, but it is what it is. On the upside, Dolph returns for some sparring.

Day of Reckoning: JCVD isn't the main character here; he is kinda the Colonel Kurtz character to Scott Adkins' Willard. Another John Hyams film, this repeats the bleak, harsh look and ugly violence of Regeneration, while mixing story elements of Memento, Apocalypse Now, and of course Universal Soldier. It's a curious mix of genres ("action horror mystery sci-fi thriller") that divided the fans, giving the impression of a particularly gory arthaus to Regeneration's cheap B-movie. It's probably a decent enough movie for people who still enjoy the bleak/gritty thing, but it may ultimately be harmed by the expectations that the unisol label raises, and by their subsequent violation. On the upside, Dolph returns yet again.

The ideal Unisol experience (short of, you know, avoiding the franchise altogether) would probably be to watch only Day of Reckoning and avoid the rest altogether, but I'm not sure the story would make much sense. What little it uses of the unisol canon is vital, and after one viewing, I'm not sure how well it is explained, i.e. whether the movie is sufficiently self-contained.﻿

TremorsSo you've seen and liked one or two Tremors movies.But did you know there's four of them?Four films, and a show that ran for one season?The franchise is kept fresh by each movie introducing a new stage in the monster's life-cycle. The TV series additionally shows that that's not all there is to Perfection Valley, and explains why there is so much strangeness in one point.

Tremors is the one where people mistakenly think Kevin Bacon's the main character. This movie's secondary character, gun loving Earl Bassett (Michael Gross), will hold that distinction for the rest of the franchise, including the TV series.Tremors 2: Aftershocks follows Earl as he takes on a stint as a paid "graboid exterminator" in Mexico.Tremors 3: Back to Perfection sees Earl back in Perfection, and while working as a stand-alone movie, serves as the pilot for the show.Tremors 4: The Legend Begins is a prequel starring the ancestors of various characters from Tremors 3, and showing the founding of Perfection as well as early monster encounters. The pacing is a little slower than in the other movies, and it didn't work quite as well for me.Tremors: The Series explores "living with the monster" (with the graboids now being a protected species) and the interactions in the town of Perfection. Due to there being other strange creatures (for reasons that become clearer halfway through the series), the format alternates between graboid episodes and "monster of the week."

The long and the short of it is, if you've seen any two, you know that they had a beloved franchise on their hands, and were loathe to changing a winning formula too much. If you liked what you saw, the rest's "more of the same", but not in a bad way: it's rarely brilliant, but often amusing, and makes for fair enough watching will having a drink and laugh with friends, or while exercising. If you've seen any of the franchise (with the possible exception of Tremors 4, which is the odd one out) and didn't like it, the rest of the franchise likely isn't different enough to be for you.

ObCritters: Another humorous monster franchise of the era doesn't hold up as well: The first Critters movie is amusing enough, but beyond that, pickings are slim. Part II is more of the same in a somewhat uninspired way; Part III seems more like a children's movie (and a weird rehash of Batteries not included a/k/a Miracle on 8th St), and if you want to watch it for being Leonardo DiCaprio's film debut, I don't know what to say to you. Except, you know, "Don't." The same goes for trying to watch the slightly better Critters 4 for Brad Dourif's appearance — as slightly ridiculous monster fueled B movies go, 1994's Death Machine is a vastly superior vehicle for Dourif.

Gothic cyborg.
Plays the guitar, the piano, and the fool.
Can change a tire and strip a gun, but prefers to dine with her friends.
Dances with pom-pons.
Has bruises from martial arts, and a kinship with computers and cats.

You can say what you like in your own postings; commenting on mine, baseline politeness and an absence of racism, sexism, etc. — religion doesn't seem to be an immutable attribute in the same way — go a long way towards not getting you blocked and/or your comments deleted.

G+ is not my primary site, and I am hopelessly behind on looking at who circled me. I'm probably missing a few really interesting people that way.